THE stage is set for the opening of Leatherhead’s first major drama festival that will include a personal appearance on the final night by film star and local resident Sir Michael Caine.

The curtain at The Theatre rises on Monday at the beginning of a week-long programme of one-act plays presented by 17 junior and adult drama groups drawn from across the county.

The festival culminates in a special awards ceremony on Saturday, May 8, when Sir Michael, who lives in Downs Lane, Leatherhead, will present trophies.

The categories will include the winning junior and senior group plays, the best actor and actress awards, and the special adjudicator’s award.

Made by the local Fire & Iron Gallery, the trophies are in-spired by one of the actor’s best loved films, the original 1969 production of The Italian Job, in which Sir Michael led a gang of bullion robbers.

The junior trophy features three Minis – which played a central part in the film – while the adult version replicates a coach hanging over a cliff, which was the final scene.

The Ashtead Players are among the adult groups taking part, along with The Nomads of East Horsley, the Fetcham Players, the Cobham Players and Merstham Amateur Dramatic Society.

Seven schools and theatre schools are entered for the junior section, including St John’s and St Andrew’s schools, Leatherhead, and Ashtead Performing Arts.

Running his experienced eye over the entire festival will be Michael Kaiser, a council member of the Guild of Drama Adjudicators. His task is to see and judge 17 plays and more than 200 actors in six days.

The festival has been more than a year in the planning and is the brainchild of retired journalist and magazine publisher Richard Houghton and his team.

He and his wife moved to the town two years ago at the height of the high-profile squabble over civic improvements and measures to inject some life into the centre that was dubbed at the time one of the “most drab” in the country.

Mr Houghton described his team’s task as enormous but it soldiered on. “There have been surprisingly few hitches,” he said.

“One group – the Heath Players – sadly had to pull out owing to the ill health of its leading man. But other groups have co-operated brilliantly and we have been able to make a small adjustment to our programme.

“It is good to see so many groups back in the famous Leatherhead Theatre. Many of these will wish to return and per-form their own productions long after this year’s festival is over.”